Why not introduce the young girls in your life to Ember and Molly this holiday season as a gift that shows them girls can grow up to be anything, especially a firefighter!
Read More »Recruitment and Retention
Why aren’t more women becoming career firefighters?
Why does the fire service have difficulty attracting, hiring, and keeping women on the job? Because in too many fire departments there's still a “gauntlet” that women have to “run” every day! And that gauntlet is not a single challenge, but rather multiple challenges.
Read More »Are Fire Departments “cutting off their noses to spite their face” with Age Discrimination?
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer I participate in several fire service-related Groups on Facebook whose target audiences are women in the fire service. One, Female Firefighters & Male Champions of Change, even let me join because of my previous advocacy for women firefighters in this space and others where my writings have appeared. How many fire departments are missing ...
Read More »More on fire service careers that don’t require entering burning buildings
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer “The fire service is a dynamic and diverse profession. It offers a wide array of opportunities throughout one’s career, not only through promotions but also the variety of services offered.” So begins a very thoughtful and informative piece from my colleague, Billy D. Hayes, that’s just posted recently on FireRescue1.com, 8 fire service careers that ...
Read More »Firefighter Camps for Girls in 2020
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer So, the other night my fire service colleague, Sue Jones, a Fire Prevention Officer with the Ottawa Fire Services, posted the following message on Facebook: “Last night, at the Fire Chief’s Commendations and Awards Ceremony, I was honoured [sic] to receive the Fire Chief’s Ambassador Award for my efforts with Camp FFIT. I think ...
Read More »Musings about firefighter recruitment and retention
Firefighter recruitment. One of those topics that's like the weather: everyone is talking about it, but nobody is doing anything about it. What fire department out there--career, combination, all-volunteer--doesn't have a tough "row to how" when it comes to finding and retaining good people?
Read More »Pregnant women in public safety is not something new
Your efforts to recruit and retain women for your department are doomed to fail if you don't have those policies and procedures in place now. If every one of your male officers and firefighters aren't informed and educated about how a female colleague will be treated when she finds out she's pregnant, your efforts are doomed to fail.
Read More »Camp FFIT gives real fire service experience to young women in Ontario
They learn that to truly be successful in this career—especially for a woman—you have to be physically fit and mentally sharp at all times. ‘Cause as a firefighter you’ve always got to have your eyes and ears open and taking it all in, and if you don’t you could get yourself or someone else seriously injured or killed.
Read More »Clan Behavior and its Influence on Fire Service Culture
I submit for your consideration that fire department leaders will not find the “fix” until they recognize that those new members (outsiders) are being exposed to the behaviors and expectations of the firehouse clan from Day #1 with a department. Who’s teaching them in those entry-level training programs? Who’s working with them at the firehouse when they come on board?
Read More »Thoughts on Recruitment and Retention for the Volunteer Fire Service
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer The recruitment and retention of members is a critical issue for many volunteer fire departments across the U.S. and Canada. Fundamentally, the problem has “many moving parts” as outlined by Rick Markley in his Introduction to my recently published e-book, Essays on Recruitment and Retention for the Fire Service: Recruiting and retaining outstanding firefighters is ...
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